with no colours in our skin
by the sad life of alex garcia
Summary: 'till we let the spectrum in. / i have this breath and i hold it tight, and i keep it in my chest with all my might. nezumi/shion.


**title:** with no colours in our skin ('till we let the spectrum in).  
**summary:** i have this breath and i hold it tight, and i keep it in my chest with all my might. nezumi/shion.  
**claim:** nezumi/shion.  
**rating/warnings:** pg-13. lots of disgusting sugar?  
**playlist (or, songs i stole titles/summary from): **spectrum - florence + the machine. between two lungs - florence + the machine. i don't want this night to end - luke bryan. shake it out - florence + the machine.

**writer!notes:** so i've been lurking around for far more than i'd like, but i finally got the guts to write and post something :c my blog is shit, please don't go there, it is a sad sad, abandoned place. so, um yeah. enjoy this weird set of three drabblets. and um. give a self-concious author a cookie?

.  
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_with no colours in our skin _  
('till we let the spectrum in).

.

.

i.

**and i am done with my graceless heart.**  
(_so tonight i'm gonna cut it out, and then restart_)  
in which they are cold and then hot.  
.

.  
Shion comes back home late from work.

He steps in to the welcoming warmness of their flat to find every single light off so he takes off his shoes at the door as quietly as he can, follows the faint glow of light into the bathroom; the vanity mirror's lights on its lowest setting. Nezumi isn't in bed and Shion can't bring himself to call him out loud, not when everything is so still, so silent.

He manages to ask (real real quiet, promise promise), "Nezumi…?" As he pushes the ajar door open, walks in, looks around, lets his eyes adjust to the bathroom's illumination.

Nezumi is sitting in the bathtub; fully clothed and soundless and still. His gaze is lost somewhere before him, and Shion can tell he has been trying to curl into himself as much as possible (like a scared mouse), but now his muscles have gone sore and tired and aching and Nezumi's (mind) skin has gone numb, resigned to only rest his chin on his knees.

The tub is filled to the brim and Nezumi's hair sticks to his face in strange drying patterns. The sudden urge to brush it away hits Shion like a neutron star collision.

"I had a nightmare," Nezumi informs him, voice small, a lip quiver, and Shion's heart breaks just a little because Nezumi is still frightened, still fears everything will burn down, burn down, burn down to ashes.

And before Shion's synapses can truly process what he is doing his legs are moving on their own accord and all he can think is _NezumiNezumiNezumi_, breathing heavily as he wakes up startled and sweating and alone, hands shaking as he turns the water to the coldest, shivering for hours—

(and he needs to protect him, damnit, Shion just _has_ to, because he is here now and Nezumi should never be _alone_)

—so he steps into the tub too, clothes on and heavy and drenching by the second, and the water is freezing cold and it makes his teeth chatter; as his toes curl Shion wonders if it ever was warm in the first place.

His fingers, still dry, find their way to Nezumi's cheek. His face is cold. He's being waiting, Shion realizes, curled into himself in the water for too long without a smile, or a touch, or arms to fall into. He touches his forehead to Nezumi's, begins, "_Nezu_– " but he is cut off by a harsh kiss, a tongue sliding in between his lips and two hands on his face.

Shion gasps against Nezumi's mouth, goes still; then lifts his hands and unsurely places them on Nezumi's neck and shoulder, tugging at the strands of hair there and keeping his lips obediently open.

The kiss isn't specially slow or fast but it is messy and hot and needful and Nezumi growls, sucking on Shion's lower lip as he pulls away and releases it with a wet pop, his pupils blown out with lust and heartache and agony and something Shion can't quite place but still manages to leave him breathless.

"I need you," Nezumi gasps, pulling Shion closer, body heat almost nonexistent and Shion shivers violently, whimpers when Nezumi's cold (freezing) fingers slide under his soaked cardigan. "now._please_."

It's the faint layer of desperation that undoes him; the quiver in Nezumi's voice and all he can find himself doing is pressing even closer, murmuring "okay, okay," over and over between the short kisses he is pressing against Nezumi's lips.

He meets Nezumi's gaze and Shion swears that Nezumi mouths _i love you_ before he is kissing him again and again and again and again.

.

.

ii.

**between two lungs.**  
i have this breath and i hold it tight, and i keep it in my chest with all my might.

.

.

Painfully loud and panicking and intrusive. That's how Nezumi's name sounds coming out of Shion's lips; foreign and awkward and wrong and uneasy.

And he thinks, _the truth doesn't set you free, you know_.

It makes you awkward and embarrassed and defenceless and red in the face and horrified and petrified and vulnerable. But free? Nezumi feels everything but free.

Shion calls him again, tasting each syllable on his tongue. He isn't free and he certainly doesn't feel any better, but it still manages to be perfect. Nezumi's eyes tear up.

"i'm sorry—" Shion blurts out, both hands hastily hurrying to Nezumi's face in soft apology. "i'm sorry. Is— did i say it that badly?"

Nezumi blinks and it makes a tear fall down from his eyelashes, a wet path down his cheek. He is frozen, unmoving, yet his eyes have never been warmer.

Shion knows not what to say or do, so he ends up pressing his forehead to Nezumi's and it makes their noses bump; Shion moves his head side to side, slowly, gently, in soft caress. He wipes Nezumi's cheek with his thumb, rubbing in a soothing motion, and Shion's face has gone red too, his eyes are a little glassy. He looks like he could also be shredding tears any time soon. Instead, though, he laughs softly and it sounds just a tiny bit broken. "i'm sorry," he says again, for lack of anything he means more right now than an apology.

Nezumi doesn't smiles when he says, "don't be," but the quiver in his voice and his warm palms pressing against Shion's back speak volumes. "Don't be sorry," he repeats, closing his eyes, brows furrowing slightly. "There is nothing to be sorry about, Shion." And it's the soft 'n' in Shion's name that captures his lip, makes Shion close his eyes and kiss back and it's tender, short and slow, with soft warm lips and a little tongue and a message.

(it goes something like this—)

"Say it again," Nezumi whispers, voice small, against Shion's mouth. There is trembling hesitation, gone in a second when Shion looks for Nezumi's eyes and finds them. This time isn't as painful as the first one, but it's still so foreign, and Nezumi's arms tighten around Shion, like he is trying to keep him there, as if Nezumi's name could only be pronounced between their lips, real real quiet, in small secret whispers.

(i love you, you are greatness, you are amazing, you are beautiful, you are my best friend.)

"Again," he urges, and Shion complies over and over and over, until they're kissing rather than speaking and it's become _Nezumi _rather than anything else.

(thank you.)

.

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iii.

**the night's still alive.**  
in which the neighbours have every right to be fucking pissed off.

.

.

They're laughing so hard that the people who live in the apartment next door have start hitting the wall with something and demanding that they shut the fuck up and go to sleep.

"S_sshh_," Nezumi urges, stifling with laughter, toothy grin grazing the skin on Shion's neck. Shion shivers, unable to stop himself from giggling when dry goosebumps run under his skin as Nezumi bites him. It tickles, but it also feels so very very _good _and oh god it's like two in the morning isn't it and he hasn't stayed awake this long since god knows when. "Fucking hell, Shion, shut your goddamn mouth."

"Shut your goddamn mouth," Shion repeats, teasingly, voice hushed, and he pushes at Nezumi's shoulders. Nezumi just very recently chased him around the apartment and wrestled him into the bed with dirty, dirty tricks like tickling and kissing and biting and right now he is trying unsuccessfully to catch Shion's hands and Shion is still a little butthurt about the glaring defeat but still not enough to not let Nezumi kiss him when he frees his wrist from Nezumi's grasp and uses his hand to tug Nezumi down by the hair.

Maybe it's because Nezumi is trying so hard not to let his chuckles turn into full-blown laugher or maybe because Nezumi can't really use all of his strength when Shion is doing _that _with this tongue, but Shion manages to free his wrists from Nezumi's grasp and uses his legs around Nezumi's waist and his full weight to push him back onto the bed and straddle him instead.

When Shion pushes at his shoulders and runs his palms down Nezumi's arms and then securely holds his wrists onto the bed it's because Nezumi is entirely willing to let Shion win this one. "Or what."

Nezumi laughs and it vibrates through all of his body; makes Shion shake on top of him. "Or I will have to use methods quite more drastic to keep your bubbling giggles at a proper volume, your majesty." And the tone of his voice tells Shion a lot more than his words, but not as much as the hips pressing up against his.

"Ooh, scary," Shion teases but it comes out breathy and low, and Nezumi uses the chance to plunge his tongue inside Shion's mouth, and they're still both laughing so the kiss turns out to be messy and wet and with a little too much teeth. Nezumi sucks on Shion's tongue at the same time that he grasps Shion's hips and pulls them down, hard, and it makes Shion moan loudly.

"You gotta be fucking kidding me," the people next door yell.


End file.
